InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Future Beginnings ❯ Ch 19: Through the Woods ( Chapter 19 )

Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

 

 

Ch 19: Through the Woods

 

 

As they drove slowly down the dark road, street lights which they hadn't even noticed on the way up winked on one by one each time they passed. Then they winked off again.

 

“Are youkai doing that?” asked Peter.

 

Inuyasha nodded. “Let me out,” he said.

 

Peter pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped. Suddenly all the street lights on the formerly dark stretch of road flared to life, sputtered and went out. “It could be an electrical problem,” remarked Peter. “Couldn't it?”

 

Inuyasha didn't reply. He opened his door and slipped out into the darkness. For a moment the occupants of the car saw nothing but the glow of Inuyasha's eyes, then that, too, was gone.

 

“What's he going to do?” asked Noriko.

 

“I'm sure he's just checking it out,” soothed Kagome. “There's nothing to worry about—probably just some of the smaller youkai pulling pranks, now that they know we are aware of them.” Even so, she reached over and pushed the lock on Noriko's door. Jen did the same on the other side. Not that it would help, but it made them feel safer.

 

A big flash of light illuminated the trees directly to their right. Tetsusaiga, Kagome realized. This must be more serious than she thought. She scrambled to unlock her door and jumped out, closing it quickly behind her. “Don't follow me,” she warned them. She made her way towards the spot where she had seen the flash, stumbling a little in the dark.

 

Inuyasha caught Kagome's scent at about the same time he saw movement in the bushes behind him. He closed his eyes briefly. She would be the death of him, and not by violence. His heart had dropped to his feet when he realized she was out there. What did she think she was doing? He managed to jump straight back to where she stood staring ahead of him at the gathering crowd of misshapen youkai-like creatures he had been facing. Of course, they all took this as a sign of fear and surged forward.

 

“Are you crazy?” he yelled at her as he grabbed her around the waist and bounded up into the branches of an oak tree. He had been trying to distract them from Peter's car, whose headlights he could see faintly shining back in the direction Kagome had come from. Now they were torn between following him and Kagome, and stalking the car filled with humans who now knew they existed.

 

“I thought I could help,” she said in a small voice, at last realizing the danger that she had put them in. “Watch out!” A small group had broken off from the main swarm and dived towards them. Kagome instinctively threw up her hands to protect her face. A white light radiated from her hands and dissolved the youkai directly in front of her. A swipe of Inuyasha's claws took care of the rest. These puny youkai were so insignificant that he didn't even need to use Tetsusaiga, he thought to himself.

 

However, the main swarm veered off towards Peter's car.

 

“Damn,” muttered Inuyasha. He let go of Kagome, cautioning her to stay put on the branch, and dove off in pursuit of the youkai. Her holy powers should protect her from any stray youkai that might have remained behind, he reasoned. This time he pulled Tetsusaiga out of its sheath and held it in front of him as he raced to get in front of the swarm of youkai. If he let go a blast of his kaze no kizu now he might accidentally take out Peter's car.

 

It was close. He intercepted the group and fired the kaze no kizu from an angle so that it took out the youkai and a good section of the trees on that side of the road, but just missed Peter's SUV. He saw the three human occupants of the vehicle stare open-mouthed at him through the windows and he gave them a lop-sided smile before he bounded back into the woods to fetch Kagome.

 

She gasped as she saw the gouges made by Tetsusaiga in the light of the headlights. “Don't you think that was a little close?” she asked Inuyasha, before they both got back in the car.

 

“Would you rather I let the youkai get to them first?” Inuyasha shot back. “Besides, I knew what I was doing. What do you think you were doing, coming after me like that?”

 

“I was worried about you,” said Kagome.

 

Inuyasha uncharactaristically grabbed her close for a quick kiss before he opened the back door for her. “Yeah, ok then, but don't make a habit of it.”

 

“Aren't you coming in?”

 

“No. I don't like it that these evil youkai suddenly showed up. Those weren't the same ones we sensed around Mr. Rinks earlier. I'll follow you from out here. That way I can take care of any trouble on the way home.”

 

Kagome didn't like it, but she agreed with Inuyasha's reasoning. The others found it hard to believe that Inuyasha would be able to keep up, but Peter at least was willing to let him try. He had seen Inuyasha obliterate those youkai right in front of him. At the last minute before Inuyasha's sword came crashing down with a bright light, he had seen glimpses of half-formed faces out of nightmare flying towards him.

 

Peter drove slowly so that Inuyasha would have a better chance of keeping up, but he found it wasn't really necessary. Inuyasha shadowed the SUV in every sense of the word. Occasionally they would see an Inuyasha-shaped shadow slip by in the light of a street lamp, only to see it disappear a moment later. If they didn't know he was out there, he would have been invisible.

 

Peter thought he understood all about youkai after having met Inuyasha and his brother, and after listening to Mr. Rinks. He realized he knew next to nothing about youkai or the hanyou he called his friend. It sobered him to realize that this wasn't a game anymore. Youkai were real. They had powers that humans only dreamed of. And some of them were not very friendly. Peter's hands gripped the steering wheel a little bit tighter. He thought of Inuyasha out there, traveling without the benefit of a vehicle. And Inuyasha wanted to learn how to drive?

 

Kagome was the voice of reason on the way home. She explained that some youkai took on the aspects of things or people around them. Fear or strong emotion made it worse. Most people weren't sensitive to the fact that youkai existed, but once they knew, it was as if their eyes were opened. Suddenly those shadows that made them feel vaguely uneasy would begin to take on substance. In Japan they had names for some of them. She didn't know if it was the same here.

 

As far as they could tell, no youkai attacked them on the way home. Inuyasha never told them differently. At a red light a few miles away from the school, he suddenly opened the passenger front door and slid into his seat. “We should be ok now,” he told them. His eyes focused on the back seat. “Everybody all right?”

 

Kagome could tell that he was asking more than his words implied. He was asking if everything was still all right between them, or had he lost them tonight when they found out the truth about him. He was nothing like the elf that Jen wished he was. Kagome's heart went out to him. She wished she could reassure him, but she only looked anxiously on as her friends responded to his inquiry.

 

Noriko smiled. “I'm fine,” she told him. “Actually, I think my imagination was worse than the reality. You are really powerful, aren't you? I'm glad you're on my side.”

 

“You kick ass, Inuyasha,” said Jen, blunt and to the point. She gave a little laugh. “I guess you really could have carried me to the camp on your back. Who knew?”

 

Inuyasha looked at Peter, who was looking straight ahead as he drove. “You ok?” he asked.

 

“I'm ok. Got lots of questions, though. If you can do all that, and you're a—what did you call it?—hanyou—what the heck else can your brother do? I'm not sure I want to know. But I finally got to see your sword in action. That was amazing! I'd like to see that again.”

 

Inuyasha was relieved. He knew Peter had seen the kaze no kizu more clearly than the other two, and he had worried about how he might react. But not much had changed in five hundred years as far as boys and weapons went. “Sure,” he responded. “I'll show you.”

 

Finally Inuyasha twisted around to face Kagome. He had found his baseball cap and carefully pushed his ears underneath it. They were nearly to Kagome's dorm. “And what about you?” he asked her softly. “Are you ok?” He meant about everything.

 

Kagome smiled back at Inuyasha. “Always,” she answered him.

 

Inuyasha, Jen and Kagome got out at their dorm, and Peter drove off to the other campus to drop off Noriko on his way to his own dorm. Tomorrow classes started again, and Inuyasha had his own schedule to sort out, between his private lessons with Noriko and his new ESL classes at Kagome's school. In between, he wanted to go back to his own forest north of the school to check it out. And he needed to go back to meet with Mr. Rinks about this youkai problem.

 

“Good night, Jen,” called Kagome as she and Inuyasha headed upstairs. He was glad hers was the only bedroom on the upper level. At least that gave them some sense of privacy. He heard the water running shortly thereafter downstairs, and he grumbled to himself, knowing that Jen had got the shower first. That was another thing he had to do—find a new place for him and Kagome to live.